AgResults addresses global challenges in food security and agriculture by generating market-oriented solutions. The initiative aims to achieve significant improvements in the wellbeing of the poor and vulnerable in developing countries with a fund of up to $100 million, to be administered by the World Bank. The governments of Australia, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are supporting this effort.

In the coming years, AgResults will launch a series of pilots that address some of the biggest problems in global food security and agricultural development. The initiative’s portfolio of pilots will represent a diverse mix of agriculture and food security issues, testing different types of pull mechanisms in different regions globally.

Through October 2011, the World Bank has solicited 38 pull mechanism ideas from 24 experts in four Thematic Groups focused on in the areas of (1) Inputs/Increasing Yields, (2) Outputs/Post-harvest Management, (3) Livestock, and (4) Nutrition. An Expert Advisory Group has recommended a number of those ideas for donor funding.

The initial set of pilots, focusing on maize production in Sub-Saharan Africa, include:

Incentivizing the adoption of on-farm storage technology for smallholder farmers. The on-farm crop storage pilot will focus on Kenya. The pilot will offer prizes for storage capacity sold and technology innovation in two target regions: the Rift Valley and Eastern provinces of Kenya. The pilot is designed to encourage private sector participants to develop innovations in on-farm crop storage technology, while addressing a range of issues faced by smallholders in accessing appropriate storage solutions.In Eastern Province, the pilot will be designed to catalyse innovation specifically for on-farm crop storage solutions that are resistant to the Larger Grain Borer (LGB) pest, as this region was identified as experiencing the greatest incidence of LGB outbreaks owing to its arid climate.

Encouraging innovative distribution of a breakthrough technology to reduce aflatoxin contamination. The aflatoxin control pilot will provide incentives for smallholder farmer adoption of a particularly promising aflatoxin control technology called AflasafeTM. This technology has been shown to reduce aflatoxin contamination. of maize grain by between 80 and 99 per cent in field tests in Nigeria, and the
pilot will focus on demonstrating a successful model for increasing smallholder adoption of an aflatoxin biocontrol. The pilot will focus on maize in Nigeria, as the country is the largest producer and consumer of maize on the African continent, and is furthest along in registering AflasafeTM as a biocontrol product. The pilot aims to address persistent barriers to the widespread adoption of biocontrol technology by Nigerian smallholders through a premium per-unit payment for maize that is verified to contain a high prevalence of AflasafeTM
(a strong predictor of low aflatoxin levels) at designated maize collection points.

Building a market for new vitamin A-enhanced varieties of maize. The biofortification pilot aims to support the rollout of ProVitamin A (PVA) maize in Zambia by stimulating the grain market for the new hybrid varieties of maize through incentives aimed at industrial millers. While the developer of PVA maize, the non-profit organisation HarvestPlus, already has push-financed programs aimed at introducing new seed varieties into the market and supporting smallholder adoption, the AgResults pilot will aim to stimulate longterm demand for new PVA maize products in mainstream secondary markets.

Additional pilots will be explored in the coming years, potentially including livestock vaccines and fertilizer innovation as well as new ideas related to increasing crop yields, decreasing post-harvest losses, increasing livestock productivity and improving nutrition.

Brics' heads of state, from left, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, Russia's President Vladimir Putin, India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, China's President Hu Jintao and President Jacob Zuma at the G-20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico. South Africa is the only African country participating in the meeting of the 20 most powerful leaders.

Under Mexico’s G20 Presidency, Vice Ministers/Deputies of Agriculture from the countries of the G20, and invited countries (the “G20 Agriculture Group”) met in Mexico City with the aim of articulating goals, focusing efforts and establishing sound commitments to address food security challenges under a global perspective.

Given the importance of Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) and especially R&D activities in each country’s respective production systems, we commit to explore additional ways of enhancing international cooperation for the effective management of R&D activities and agree to:

Facilitate the exchange of experiences and policy dialogue on AIS at a high level, and as a follow up of the G20 Conference on Agricultural Research for Development, we support :

The Meeting of the GCARD to take place in Uruguay in October
2012.

Meetings of G20 Agricultural Chief Scientists (MACS) or highlevel agricultural research officials from G20 member countries, other
interested countries, and International Research Organizations such as
CGIAR, with the goal of identifying global research priorities and
targets, facilitating collaboration between public and private sector
organizations in the key areas, most likely to drive sustainable
productivity gains, and tracking progress on established goals over
time. The first MACS meeting will take place in Mexico in September
2012.9/16

Invite existing mechanisms and platforms to consider ways to
facilitate international collaboration and information exchange on
sustainable agricultural innovation and growth.

In addition, we emphasize the need to strengthen efforts at the
national, regional and global levels to assess, identify, prioritize,
monitor and evaluate investments in AIS in order to a) collect and
maintain a comprehensive database on expenditures on agricultural
innovation; and b) develop tools and methods to assess the performance
and impact of innovation systems.